Technical Field
The present invention relates to a sealed single-dose break-open package.
Prior Art
Patent application WO2009040629A2 describes a sealed single-dose break-open package; the package comprises a sheet of semirigid plastic material and a sheet of flexible plastic material, which is set on top of and welded to the first sheet of semirigid plastic material, so as to define a sealed pocket that contains a dose of a fluid product. The sheet of semirigid plastic material centrally has a pre-weakened area, which guides a controlled breakage of the sheet of semirigid plastic material, in order to cause the formation of an outlet opening for the product through the sheet of semirigid plastic material itself. In other words, in order to open the sealed package, a user must grab the sealed package with the fingers of a hand and fold the sealed package in a “V” shape, until the sheet of semirigid plastic material brakes in correspondence to the pre-weakened area. The pre-weakened area comprises an inner incision, which is obtained through an inner surface (namely, one facing the pocket) of the sheet of semirigid plastic material, and an outer incision, which is obtained through an outer surface of the sheet of semirigid plastic material and is aligned with the inner incision.
The sealed package described in patent application WO2009040629A2 is designed to be opened by being arranged horizontally and with the sheet of semirigid plastic material (having the pre-weakened area) oriented downwards. In other words, in order to ensure a correct outlet of the product, the sealed package must be arranged horizontally and with the sheet of semirigid plastic material (having the pre-weakened area) oriented downwards; starting from this position, the user must fold the sealed package in a “V” shape, until the sheet of semirigid plastic material brakes in correspondence to the pre-weakened area to let the product out.
Recently, uses of a sealed single-dose package have been suggested, which require a high precision in the product outlet direction, as the product must be fed into a relatively small-sized opening (for example, a hole having a diameter smaller than one centimeter). In other words, the user, by folding the sealed package in a “V” shape, must be able to easily and accurately direct the product, so as to hit the centre of a relatively small-sized opening arranged under the sealed package. However, the sealed package described in patent application WO2009040629A2 is not suited for these uses, since it requires the sealed package to be opened from a horizontal position (in which the sealed package hides from the user's view the opening that lies under it and must be hit by the product, thus making the operation complicated and uncertain); furthermore, the product flows out of the “V”-folded sealed package with a relatively accidental and hardly foreseeable direction, thus making the operation even more complicated and uncertain.